Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesA professor at Columbia University said he was the victim of targeted harassment from campus security officers after the school beefed-up safety protocols in response to the ongoing pro-Palestinian encampment.Dr. Carl Hart, a psychology professor at Columbia University, spoke to The Daily Beast about an “explosive interaction” he had with security personnel on Thursday, which he also briefly described on X.Hart and his wife were entering campus on Thursday afternoon, when a security guard chased him down, claiming he hadn’t properly checked in. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Wally Skalij/Getty ImagesFirst it canceled a valedictorian’s speech. Then it removed all non-university-affiliated speakers from the lineup. Now, in the latest axe to fall on the University of Southern California’s graduation festivities, the school will no longer hold its main commencement ceremony for the thousands of graduates and guests it had promised to host. In an announcement made Thursday, USC blamed logistical problems related to increased security protocols. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Justin Sullivan/GettyG/O Media rid itself of another property on Thursday, telling staffers in a company-wide memo that it has sold the satirical outlet The Onion.“We have been undergoing an extensive review of our portfolio with the intention of coring down to our leading sites in terms of audience and revenues,” CEO Jim Spanfeller wrote to staffers in a memo, which was obtained by The Daily Beast. “Today we announced great traffic gains for Quartz but also, as part of efforts to sharpen our focus, we are announcing that G/O Media has sold The Onion to a new Chicago based firm called Global Tetrahedron.”The New York Times first reported the news of the purchase. The Daily Beast reported last month that G/O Media was actively looking for a buyer. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Mike StobeFormer president Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that his ongoing hush money trial constitutes “election interference,” by preventing him from connecting with voters, and so, the Republican presidential nominee spent his one day off from court diligently campaigning.Just kidding, Trump actually went golfing.A not-so aggrieved Trump spent his Wednesday puttering around at the Bedminster Golf Club, sources told CNN. On Wednesday, President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign released a succinct statement about Trump’s campaign events that day: “He had none.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Stefania D'AlessandroIsraeli supermodel Bar Refaeli has taken a swipe at Bella Hadid, accusing the 27-year-old of spreading fake news with her post about Palestinian children.On Monday, Hadid, who is Palestinian on her father’s side, posted an image of children with the caption “Gaza on my mind.” However, the image was not from Gaza but from the Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria and was taken from a 2021 documentary during the Syrian civil war.The misrepresentation prompted Instagram to add a warning that Hadid’s post was “missing context” and could “mislead people.” The note links to a web page that explains the images are from a refugee camp in Syria.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Rodin Eckenroth/Getty ImagesMore than 80 women have accused producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault. On Thursday, dozens of them expressed their shock and outrage when news broke that a New York court had overturned his 2020 rape conviction.The decision from the New York Court of Appeals means the Manhattan DA’s office will once again have to try the serial predator, and his accusers may once again have to take the stand. His conviction on one count of sexual assault in connection with a 2013 attack on a woman inside a Beverly Hills hotel still stands.His accusers’ response ranged from heartbreak—“My body is shaking,” one texted—to anger and defiance. The women vowed to continue the fight against sexual violence and predation, regardless of the court outcome.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/GettyPay Dirt is a weekly foray into the pigpen of political funding. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Thursday.As former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel fights for full payment on her unfulfilled six-figure NBC contract, she at least has a nice financial cushion from the RNC to fall back on.On March 6, two days before Donald Trump’s RNC takeover deposed his handpicked former chair, McDaniel received a payment of $118,769.99, according to disclosures just recently filed with the Federal Election Commission. Those records show that the sum is the single largest payment to McDaniel that the committee has ever reported, amounting to nearly half of her combined regular payroll earnings last year.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Elijah Nouvelage/Getty ImagesDemonstrators at Emory University protesting in support of Palestinians and against a planned “Cop City” training center were subject to increasingly violent arrests on Thursday as Atlanta police attempted to shut down their protests.Around 10:20 a.m., officers from the Emory Police Department, Atlanta Police Department, and state troopers used tear gas, tasers, and zip ties to disperse an encampment set up that morning on the university’s quad, Emory’s student-run newspaper The Emory Wheel reported.One disturbing video from the event showed a trio of police officers tasing a protester, who was handcuffed and held down on the ground.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagicActress Amanda Seales, who starred on all five seasons of the hit, Issa Rae-helmed HBO comedy Insecure, put her former boss on blast during a sit-down with Club Shay Shay host Shannon Sharpe this week.Recounting tension between herself and Rae’s publicist, Vanessa Anderson, when she had attended an event with Jill Scott, Seales said that she felt that Anderson had a problem with her. “I said to Issa, I don’t know what’s going on with your publicist, but she got something wrong,” Seales told Sharpe. “She got a problem with me. And she was like, that’s between y’all. And I said, ‘Well, it’s not really between y’all, because I don’t have a problem with her. But she seems to have a problem with me.’ And she was like, ‘That’s none of my business.’” Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/InstagramIf Meghan Markle’s lifestyle brand American Riveria Orchard and its strawberry jam are all part of a grand plan to troll the royal family, chances are it’s working. Although the sugary preserves have yet to hit store shelves, people are already smacking their lips thanks to a brilliant PR campaign that rips a page right out of Queen Beyoncé’s marketing handbook. Left and right, a select few celebrities have begun rushing to post video and photos of jam baskets that have been sent to them, complete with bright yellow lemons and handwritten notes from the Duchess of Sussex herself. (You’ll notice that the immaculate penmanship on the letters is the same as on the jam jars; that would be Markle’s handwriting, perfected through her past life as a part-time calligrapher.)Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/GettyFor years, Harvey Weinstein’s New York City sex crimes conviction signified a landmark legal victory for the #MeToo movement. But the victory that solidified a global reckoning against alleged sexual predators was thrown out the window on Thursday morning, when the state’s highest court overturned the disgraced producer’s conviction.And legal experts say that while the bombshell decision is a significant victory for Weinstein—and paves the way for a new trial—it does not mean he will soon see the outside of a jail cell.“Weinstein will get a new trial, but that doesn’t mean he’s actually innocent,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told The Daily Beast on Thursday.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Scouted/The Daily Beast/Ruggable. Scouted selects products independently. If you purchase something from our posts, we may earn a small commission.If you were obsessed with Ruggable’s first collaboration with Morris & Co., we have great news for you: the brands have released a second joint collection, and it’s somehow even more gorgeous than the first.The original Ruggable x Morris & Co. collection was one of Ruggable’s best-selling collaborations to date, with eye-catching prints and gorgeous florals aplenty, so it’s no surprise they delivered even more whimsical, nature-inspired prints and designs the second time around. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Getty Images An attorney for Donald Trump on Thursday tried to convince the U.S. Supreme Court that his client could have murdered his political rivals with immunity, whether for official state purposes or just because he felt like it—and Justice Sonia Sotomayor was not having it.On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump’s presidential immunity case, and discussion largely focused on determining if there is immunity for a president’s “official acts.”Justice Sonia Sotomayor cut right to the heart of the issue, by asking attorney John Sauer point blank whether a president should be allowed to assassinate his political rivals, as both he and Trump have previously argued. Read more at The Daily Beast.

TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty ImagesHarvey Weinstein’s accusers responded with shock and defiance to news that the disgraced producer’s New York rape conviction was overturned Wednesday.Louise Godbold, who accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct, told The Daily Beast she was “shaking” Wednesday morning after receiving the news."We thought it was finished,” she said in a text message. “We thought we could finally move on. Today’s news ignites all the panic, the fear, the confusion of the original trauma.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Jeenah Moon/Getty ImagesTabloid boss David Pecker took the stand at Donald Trump’s hush-money trial for the third day on Thursday, testifying about his scheme to bury a Playboy Playmate’s affair story that could’ve damaged the former president’s campaign.Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass began questioning on Thursday by having Pecker walk the jury through the evolution of a $150,000 payment that Enquirer parent company American Media Inc. (AMI) made to Playmate Karen McDougal for the exclusive rights to her life story. Pecker said former Enquirer Editor-in-Chief Dylan Howard approached him in June 2016 and said a source had called to say McDougal was trying to sell a story about a year-long “romantic” relationship she’d had with Trump.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Lionsgate“I know what I believe,” says Rebecca Smallbone (Kirrilee Berger), a teenager defending her ability to write and sing pop songs, about halfway through the biopic Unsung Hero.The audience has to more or less take her word for it, because while she will eventually become the Christian pop star Rebecca St. James, Unsung Hero doesn’t focus enough on Rebecca to give anyone a sense of her thoughts or feelings on much of anything. We’re left to assume that she simply shares most of her beliefs with the true subjects of the film: her parents, David and Helen. In the tradition of King Richard, where Will Smith played the cantankerous, determined, high-standards father of Venus and Serena Williams, the next step in biopic evolution apparently involves paying tribute to the parents who figure so prominently in certain success stories. This seems like a particularly appealing tactic for a faith-based movie like Unsung Hero. Call it Fifth Commandment Cinema.Unsung Hero is Fifth Commandment Cinema without the benefit of Will Smith-level charisma to make the stubbornness and screw-ups go down easier. What it lacks in star power, it makes up for in astonishing levels of faux-piety and false modesty: Joel Smallbone, of the Christian musical act For King & Country, co-writes and co-directs a biopic starring himself, playing his dad David. As the movie tells it, David follows his dream as a Christian music promoter and, after taking a bath on an early-'90s Amy Grant tour (blamed vaguely on “the economy”), uproots the family and moves them to the United States to start a new record label with another artist. When they arrive, David learns that the deal has fallen through. Now the family is stranded in Nashville with a six-month visa, no jobs, and plenty of pressure to head back to Australia. David doesn’t want to give up, but he’s also not sure what to do next.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Idris Solomon/ReutersA group of pro-Palestine protesters chased a New York Police Department chief into an NYU campus building on Monday night as the demonstrators demanded that he and other officers released a woman in their custody.Video of the incident shared online shows assistant chief James McCarthy being loudly berated by the protesters as he tries to get inside the NYU Catholic Center. McCarthy struggles and ultimately fails to open a door to the building as shouts of “you fucking fascist” and “fuck you pigs” can be heard from the group surrounding the officers.The protesters also chant “let her go” in reference to a handcuffed woman appearing to be being restrained by one officer in riot gear. When the police take the woman around the building to another entrance, the protesters follow, continuing to demand her release and shouting “free Palestine.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Johannes Eisele/AFP via GettyNew York’s highest court has overturned fallen Hollywood titan Harvey Weinstein’s sex crimes conviction.In a 4-3 decision, the appeals court ruled Thursday that Weinstein was tried not only for the crimes he was charged with but with his past behavior.This is a developing story and will be updated.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Yuki Iwamura/GettyDonald Trump on Wednesday described a deadly 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville as a “peanut” compared with the current wave of pro-Palestine demonstrations unfolding on college campuses across America.In a post on his Truth Social platform, the Republican noted that his successor, Joe Biden, had cited the Unite the Right rally in Virginia as among his motives for running for president. One woman was killed and almost 40 other people were hurt when a neo-Nazi rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters at the rally—an event that Trump claimed at the time had been attended by “very fine people on both sides.”“Crooked Joe Biden would say, constantly, that he ran because of Charlottesville,” Trump wrote in his post Wednesday. “Well, if that’s the case, he’s done a really terrible job because Charlottesville is like a ‘peanut’ compared to the riots and anti-Israel protests that are happening all over our Country, RIGHT NOW.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Reuters/Denis SinyakovA Russian court has sentenced two teenagers to hard time for graffiti and anti-war social media posts. Lyubov Lizunova, 16, was sentenced to 3.5 years in a penal colony, while 19-year-old Alexander Snezhkov got 6 years, the court’s press service said Thursday. The two were detained by federal agents in October 2022 for writing “death to the regime” in graffiti in the city of Chita.Since President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has ordered a crackdown on dissent across Russia. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesIt’s the question everyone in British society and in the corridors of power is thinking, but nobody will publicly ask, let alone answer: Just how sick is King Charles III? The chatter that King Charles is significantly more unwell than his aides are letting on is proliferating in British society.Speaking to friends of the king in recent weeks about his health, the most common response is a lowering of the voice by half an octave or so, followed by the sombre, drawn-out pronouncement: “It’s not good.”His officials didn’t respond to formal requests for comment on the matter from The Daily Beast. To be clear, his team have made it very clear, since the king disclosed his cancer diagnosis earlier this year—in an unprecedented act of royal transparency—that they wouldn’t be providing a “running commentary” on his health.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Jordan Pettitt/PA Images/Getty ImagesThe white horse which charged through London streaked crimson by blood is in a serious condition but still alive, British military officials said Thursday.Vida, technically known as a grey horse, is in an equine hospital after the dramatic incident in Central London Wednesday. Up to five horses either bolted or threw their riders after builders working on a construction site dropped a heavy load of concrete and rubble from height on an otherwise quiet street the horses were being ridden on.The horses are all part of the Household Cavalry, a regiment closely associated with the king which provides ceremonial escorts at state occasions such as the monarch’s birthday parade.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Benoit Tessier/ReutersQuelle catastrophe! The Moulin Rouge suffered a bit of a faux pas early Thursday when the blades fell off the iconic red windmill that stands atop the theater and crashed down into the street below.The world-famous cabaret joint in Paris said no one was hurt in the incident that unfolded shortly before 2 a.m. “The Moulin Rouge, in 135 years of history, has experienced many adventures but it is true that for the wings, this is the first time that this has happened,” General Manager Jean-Victor Clerico said, Reuters reports.The blades also appear to have wiped out the first three letters of the neon “MOULIN ROUGE” sign on their way down. Read more at The Daily Beast.

ReutersDonald Trump is tearing into his former attorney general for endorsing him in the upcoming presidential election, using the opportunity to dredge up his old insults against the man he says “let a lot of great people down by not investigating Voter Fraud in our Country.”Bill Barr, who invoked the wrath of Trump after publicly rebuking the then-president’s claim of a “stolen” election in 2020, said last week that he’d support a “Republican ticket” in the 2024 election.In an interview earlier this month with Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, Barr was asked directly if he’d support Trump despite having past “disagreements” with him.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Curtis Means/ReutersThis might be a stressful day for Donald Trump.The former president will return to a New York City courtroom Thursday for the resumption of his trial on felony charges related to the alleged falsification of business records to hide payments to a porn star. At the same time, 200 miles to the south, the United States Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments about whether he should be granted absolute immunity from prosecution for anything he did during his time in the White House.Trump has made no secret that he’d rather be in Washington, D.C., for the high court hearing, but the judge in his Manhattan case kiboshed his plans to attend. “Arguing before the Supreme Court is a big deal, and I can certainly appreciate why your client would want to be there, but a trial in New York Supreme Court… is also a big deal,” Judge Juan Merchan told Trump defense lawyer Todd Blanche as he torpedoed the idea last week.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily BeastIf you were a rioter at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, you may have felt the whole world was with you—or the part of the world that supported what you did.President Trump himself had urged you to march to the Capitol Building. A crowd walked alongside you down Pennsylvania Avenue. People chanted with you about attacking Mike Pence, crashed through the police lines with you, helped you to break windows and march through the building.After your arrest, it turned out that you had always been alone. Your mob vanished. You had only your lawyer as companionship at trial. You had no friends as you sat at your sentencing hearing. You alone were imprisoned. You had not won. You were a loser.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/Dr. Jeff Gunter For US SenateWhen he launched his campaign for U.S. Senate in Nevada last year, Jeff Gunter presented himself as a gritty frontiersman and a diehard MAGA Republican.Gunter’s opening video depicts him stepping into a Ford F-150 pickup truck—cowboy boots and all—admiring the bucolic western landscape in a burgundy button-down as he talks about his credentials. And in case you had somehow forgotten which state’s Senate seat Gunter is running for in the ad, he’s also sporting a belt buckle with boldface lettering spelling “Nevada.”But despite Gunter’s breezy adoption of a rugged western persona, it appears his brand is more hat than cattle.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Anatolii Stepanov/AFP via Getty ImagesKHARKIV, Ukraine—After months of infighting on Capitol Hill, President Joe Biden has finally been able to sign off on a huge new $61 billion military aid bill for Ukraine. Delays to the bill, which got bogged down in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, were widely blamed for impacting Kyiv’s ability to defend itself from Russian advances. After its passage last week, some members of the House waved Ukrainian flags while others cheered in celebration that Ukraine will soon receive new weapons ahead of Russia’s expected counteroffensive. Signing it into law at a White House ceremony on Wednesday, Biden promised the arms shipments would begin immediately and hailed what he called “a good day for world peace.”The reaction here, near the front lines of the war, felt very different.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/GettyLast Wednesday, dozens of students skipped class to gather outside a Payson, Utah, middle school for hours and chant, “We the people, not the animals!”—a protest launched over the dramatic accusation that their classmates were running wild as “furries” and attacking other students without consequence.Much of the hysteria, however, has been blown out of proportion.Footage from the scene showed them hoisting signs declaring, “Compelled speech is not free speech,” “We won’t be compelled,” and “We just want to learn.” A fourth sign read, “You can’t ignore us,” with a drawing of an animal print covered with a prohibition sign.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesThe first stages of the trial of the People of New York State vs. Donald J. Trump have been illuminating in a variety of ways. They have made it absolutely clear that this trial is not the legal non-event Republicans and drinkers of conventional wisdom-flavored Kool Aid said it was.It is not a case about “paperwork” or “bookkeeping.” It is not a bland little nothingburger of arcane, hard-to-prove white-collar crime. It is not just the “hush money” or the “porn star” sideshow. It is a case about an alleged attempt by a man running for this country’s highest office to systematically defraud voters and use illegal means to gain an advantage in an election. What is more, it is a case about doing so in an election cycle in which he won the electoral vote by fewer than 80,000 votes. His margin was razor-thin. The lies his friends at the National Enquirer told that were spread by others in the MAGA propaganda machine could well have tipped the balance of the election in his favor.Read more at The Daily Beast.